Hi everyone, it's been awhile since we had a refresher course on the posting guidelines. We've had a lot of newbies sign up. Welcome Aboard! The more the merrier! And it doesn't hurt you longtimes to re-read this. As always, we're here to help. Ask questions, we'll do our best to answer.

Are you ready maggot?

SEARCH

If it's a breaking news topic, check breaking news first, it's probably already posted. Check the breaking news sidebar first. Don't try to be the first one with the story, you've already been beaten by about eight threads.

To avoid duplicate posts, please search before posting. Use the published article title to prevent duplicates. The best method to search is to pick a key word or two from the title. If the article you are posting is, "Cindy Sheehan is a witch in a ditch", start with 'Cindy' for the key word. If it is a hot topic, you might want to use two or more keywords, in this case, try 'Cindy Sheehan'. For an effective search, select 'match all words' and select 'order by post time'.

If your thread title has a unique word, like 'moonbat' try using that word first in your search. Again, use the "order by post time" option to see the latest threads posted.

It also helps to scan the keywords at the top right hand side. Check "Popular Keywords". If you're posting an immigration thread, nine times out of ten, it's been posted, or your one line vanity, can be included with the hundreds of already posted threads.

All non-sourced non-news threads are posted here. All fluff stories are posted here. We are a political forum, not a pit bull, SUV or porno site. Keep your threads to a political nature. There are of course exceptions, but post those to the General/Chatforum.

This doesnt mean your one thought is a thread by itself, and your vanities should be substantial to be considered a news forum thread. Others will be moved to the various forums. Lately, we have been seeing articles posted that should be comments made on the main article. Your comment/vanity article will be pulled or moved to General/Chat. Vanities should be limited to the mission of Free Republic.

Free Republic is the premier online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web. We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America. And we always have fun doing it. Hoo-yah!

Free Republic is huge, we're pushing 250,000 registered posters, so don't clutter up our news forum with your one thought lines, local interest aligator stories, or whatever floats your boat. Jim and John have worked hard to keep us current, let's utilize the tools they've built. There are areas to have fun discussions as well, but let's keep the news forum dedicated to news. And at times we'll let something fun in news, move something you think is important to chat, and variations of. We're trying to run a forum, not dis you as a poster. Nothing personal, it's just business, and we have to cater to a multitude of personalities. If you disagree, the fastest way to contact us is hit the abuse link, state your name and other usefull stuff, like a link. We're human, we make mistakes. And we can't always read inflection into posts.

For all of you who have blogs or personal web sites that you would like to discuss or promote on Free Republic, here's the place to do it.

Our Bloggers & Personal forum is for:

Posting from your blog.

Posting from other peoples blogs.

Posting from your personal web site.

Posting from other peoples personal web sites.

Promoting your blog.

Promoting other peoples blogs.

Promoting your personal web site.

Promoting your favorite web sites.

Posting from your favorite outside forums.

Posting from your favorite lefty forums or sites (DUh and the like).

Click on the "Bloggers & Personal" forum link on the Forums sidebar of the latest posts pages.

We know many of you think your blog is special. There are some blogs out there worthy of news, like Little Green Footballs. If your blog scoops something, and we blog it, again, let us know. We see most all articles posted, we can analyze your content and compare it to similar threads. We aren't personally trying to 'trash' you. We're trying to keep FR optimized. You have a problem, just ask, we'll work with you. Again, the fastest way, use the abuse function, leave your name and we'll try to get back to you as fast as we can. You can always FR mail us, but that might take longer. Remember, there are 12 of us and 30,000+ posts daily. We don't see it all.

Other sidebars

Only one of these topics will show up in a sidebar, posting to multiple topics will still only show one topic.

Activism/Chapters - Activism, protests, news and business of Free Republic Chapters. Freep this poll should be placed in vanity. General news stories about activism should be place in news. After action reports from Freeps are allowed here.

Announcements  Notifications of Activism events, FR business

Breaking News

- Not every story is breaking news. Breaking news should be news that affects most of us. There are some exceptions. If there is a hot current event happening, check breaking news. Most likely, it's there already, please check first, then use our search function. (Explained below)

Editorial - Editorials are opinions. Some vanities, if well written and thought out can be considered editorial material.

Extended News - Extended news is for stories which have been posted previously and have updated or newer information.

Free Republic - This category is reserved for Free Republic business.

Front Page News - Front page is for stories which are not breaking news, but would be found on the front page of a newspaper.

These are just some of the topics that you may use two or more. Do not go out of your way to put in more topics just to try to get more views for your thread. Doing so makes the topics less usable for everyone. Also, do not list every state on your thread. It is unnecessary. Please limit the state topics to those states that the story pertains to.

Don't think you are being sly or tricky, the mods have seen every trick in the book, so don't try to get around the posting rules with creative antics, your thread will be deleted. We have these rules for a reason. We want Free Republic to be on the internet, not shut down by liberals trying to silence our voices. Please, if you post an article and get an excerpt rule, follow it. Don't try to sneak in a full article in a post, we'll delete it.

I still don't know how to go between the different subscrition deals.. I like the old format. Anyway, you forgot to post that it is against the rules to post a thread about a female teacher/male student unless there is an accompanying pic of the teacher.

4
posted on 04/07/2006 2:18:04 PM PDT
by Rodney King
(No, we can't all just get along.)

And set your 'order' (right hand side sidebar configurations), one being first, 5 being fifth. "MAX" is the number of articles you want to see. 5, 10, 15, etc will show 5 or 10 or 15 articles in your sidebar. 'Color' is something John was playing with. Enter that at your own risk.

2. When you're in your album, under Add Pictures, there is a place to click if the photo you want to place is somewhere on the internet, or there is a Browse button if the picture is somewhere on your own computer.

3. Hit the Submit button to upload the picture to your PhotoBucket account, and look at it. There are 3 boxes under the picture with coding in them. Pick the middle one (the one that starts with "img", highlight it and copy it (edit-->copy)

4. Come over here to FreeRepublic, open your reply window, and paste it in (edit-->paste)

5. Preview it (remember, preview is our friend) Voila - it should appear like magic!

I sent a rather blunt email to Diane Feinstein last night which I posted on FR and have just received a reply from her which I'd also like to post. My question is since the original thread is now pages back should I still post it there?

Sure, link back to your original. Is it newsworthy? Or is it a canned response. Then, consider, what good would a canned response be on the forum? We all know the MO of libs. Posting is not cut and dried. If you think your canned reply is worthy, then post it. But, it'll probably be moved to chat. Just because we have heard their pathetic responses a zillion times. If you get a unique response, then, it's probably newsworthy. The 'ho hum' replies will be chatted.

"So if I want to post something from one of these top-quality blogs, does it make sense to do it in News/Activism?"

Here's the skinny. Go ahead and post it. Blogs are a dime a dozen. We all know that. If it's newsworthy, and an obscure blogger posted it, it'll eventually end up in news. We don't limit blogs to blog only. We've put articles in blog only to shortly realize, this is big news. It's not easy, what's legit news, what's just opinion. But, eventually, the cream will rise to the top. If you're adamant about a thread, send us off a note, we'll review it. 9 times out of 10, we'll move it to news. We aren't Nazis, as the trolls would have you think. We see a lot more than the average poster, even the poster who's here 24-7. But, we know when a developing hot story is in the works, and we try to credit the blogger who first posted it. Hope this helps.

Activism/Chapters - Activism, protests, news and business of Free Republic Chapters. Freep this poll should be placed in vanity. General news stories about activism should be place in news. After action reports from Freeps are allowed here.

We have "GUIDELINES". About 4 hours. But a lot depends on the topic. Is it hot, is it in breaking news? How many other posts have been posted? Is it so hot, we've been pulling tons of additional threads? If you post the exact same article 7 hours later, but it's number two in the breaking news sidebar, should we pull it? We discuss this behind the scenes. And sorry to say, a lot 'depends' on the situation. Case by case.

If it's just a generic repost, then we follow the four hour guideline. If it's a hot, everyone is following it, it depends. Moderating doesn't have the 'if then else' rules. It's a dynamic situation. Mostly we have a set of rules......Mostly, we can't follow them.

If an article is excerpt only, personally, go by the 1/3 rule. Even though John's written a 300 word code, I try to abide by the guidelines and be fair (I'll post the first one or two sentences) Personally, I try not to post from those sites, why give them additional hits when they're being bitchy about it? I don't want to see FR shafted by, "you posted 253 words, and it should have been 216 words".

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Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.